


from the black in your eyes

by haloud



Category: Arslan Senki | Heroic Legend of Arslan
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Angst, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Communication, M/M, Missing Scene, i really dont know how to tag this one, is key kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 01:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9797195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: Daryun and Narsus grew apart through no real fault of their own, but that doesn't mean they've gotten any better at the ins and outs of what a healthy relationship requires.  These things take time and hard work, particularly when you're trying to reconnect on every level at the same time.  But gods--won't it be worth it in the end?





	

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from all about you by birdy

Narsus leans tipsily back into Daryun’s chest.  The fire’s warmth washes over him, sending him deeper and deeper into drowsiness, helped along even further by the matching warmth at his back.  Daryun doesn’t move to hold him, though, not like he might have once—he touches Narsus’s side once, just a steadying, bracing hand, before withdrawing and merely providing his body as a convenient prop for Narsus to rest upon, in lieu of a better couch.

Absentmindedly, Narsus unties his hair to let it fall loose over his shoulders.  He’ll be the first to admit that his style of choice is not exceedingly practical, but it’s just one of a few areas where he’s willing to let his fine artistic sensibilities overtake his meticulous tactical mind.  Certainly, there are times when his hair falls into his eyes and slightly impairs visibility.  To be sure, long hair provides a convenient handhold in a tussle. 

But long hair provides…other things, as well.  Narsus arches his back like a cat when he feels Daryun skim his fingers just ever so slightly through the fall of soft brown hair now drifting against him.  It’s manipulative, but Narsus doesn’t give a damn.  Daryun always liked his hair, and Narsus is willing to pull out some stops if it means unwinding his former lover from the duty-obsessed place he’s put himself.

Daryun clears his throat.  “So, Narsus.  I was thinking to inquire about the plans you’re developing for Arslan’s next meeting with—“

“Oh, you _must_ be joking, dearest Daryun.  You want me to talk politics?  Now?  Three cups in and so vulnerable?”

“Don’t be absurd.  You’ve never been vulnerable in your cups; you aren’t fooling me.”

“Oh, alright.  But your face is going to freeze that way one of these days, you know.”

“And what way is that?  Forgive me if some of us are serious about the war we’re fighting and about the safety of the prince.”

Narsus almost heaves a frustrated sigh, but he bites it back instead of giving Daryun the satisfaction.   He tries not to let the insinuation sting too badly; he has, after all, spent years cultivating the image of the hedonist, the exiled layabout hiding in the mountains.  Perhaps Daryun could be forgiven for buying into the façade.  Narsus, after all, puts on only the very best show, even when that show is just his life.

_Or perhaps not._ Perhaps he shouldn’t smother the urge he feels to hold on to the sting, to let it turn him vindictive and hardened to the man behind him.  He’d wanted only a quiet, comforting night where they continue not to speak of what flows unfulfilled between them, but now he’s pulled in a thousand different directions. 

“You know, _you_ came to _me.”_ Narsus folds his hands over his lap, just for something to do with them.  He doesn’t move, doesn’t alter his posture; he stays lax and reclining against Daryun’s solid shoulder.  The words just fall from his mouth, too sharp, too heavy for the comfortable, peaceful setting.

“What on earth are you talking about, Narsus?”  It’s worded less like a question and more like a demand, the way all requests from Daryun are inevitably worded.  Not a request for clarification, no—a _demand_ for answers, an insistence that Narsus turn his grievance into something tangible that Daryun can fight back against, even if that fight is with words.  Narsus grits his teeth.

“You insinuate that my drinking and relaxation—and, extrapolating out from those simple recreational activities, my painting, music, and study of literature as well—are manifestations of a lack of concern for king or country.  That I am simply a hedonist, jaded by my exile from court and drowning myself in pleasures unworthy of my brilliant mind.  So I merely pointed out that it was _you_ who sought out _my_ assistance in your war effort, not the other way around.  I was convinced of the nobility of your cause by the prince’s own purity and earnestness, not by your martial prowess, and you know me well enough to know that I would never have been swayed by threats.  I could have easily denied you my aid and turned you over to the soldiers.  The fact remains that if I had not joined your ‘army,’ you would have been waving sharp sticks at giants until you were inevitably crushed, and yet here you sit accusing me of being less than _serious._ ”

Narsus finishes speaking with a voice slightly roughened.  There’s a reason he tries never to broach emotional, long-winded topics with nothing nearby to wet his throat, and he finished his last glass of wine several minutes ago.  Besides, he ended up being more long-winded than he had intended to be; once the words began to pour forth, it was like draining a wound, and they would not stop.

“Are you finished?” Daryun asks, tone inscrutable.  Wonderful.  Narsus has irritated him, which means both the loss of a rather satisfactory resting place _and_ that the next few days—if not weeks—of marching are bound to be insufferable until he’s finished sulking.

_Or maybe you just used too many big words,_ a nasty voice in Narsus’s head supplies.

“Not hardly, but I believe I have said all that is relevant for the moment,” Narsus replies loftily, squashing down the less charitable responses he could provide.

“Good.”

Daryun sighs, such a heavy sound that it ruffles the fine hair around Narsus’s ear.  Is it absurd for two grown men to have such a conversation back-to-front like this, as much avoiding eye contact as anything else?  Narsus could have easily pulled away to face the man when he was initially offended; Daryun could throw him off and pace the room to work off some the tension in his body.  Daryun always argues best when he can put movement behind the words.  Narsus has always admired that about the man—the sheer _presence_ he can bring to a room, it gives him the potential to affect such wonderful discourse, though he lacks the elocution to ever be a great orator…

But Daryun had been speaking, hadn’t he?  Narsus cuts off his rambling train of thought to await the rest of what Daryun has to say.  However, an entire minute trickles by as Narsus sits there waiting, countable in Daryun’s steady breathing and the distant ticking of the enormous clock in the entry hall. 

“Well?  Out with it,” Narsus finally says.  It’s out of character for impatience to get the better of him this way, but it has been an exhausting few days, and the drink may be getting slightly to Narsus’s head after all, and—

And a million more excuses for why Daryun has, yet again, gotten beneath his skin in a way of which no other man is capable.

“I was trying to think of how best to say what I want to say.  I thought you would appreciate that.”

Oh.  Well. 

Narsus lets his silence speak for itself.  Internally, he scolds himself for his own rash behavior.

“I’ve never doubted your value to Prince Arslan or to Palse.  Not once.  Not even on the day you were exiled.”

Daryun takes another deep breath and exhales very slowly, continuing, “I am… we are very different people.  You’ve known that for longer than I have, as you were once so fond of telling me.  I know my manners are unsuited for court and mayhaps even rougher than you remember.  I apologize for the pain my harsh words have caused you.”

This is…unexpected, to say the least.  Narsus smooths his hands down the tops of his thighs as he carefully considers how to proceed. 

“Yes, well.  Apology accepted,” he says after a pause.  He hates to give up ground in an argument, but it would be counterproductive to any attempts to turn Daryun into a courtworthy man to callously squash even the clumsiest attempts at reconciliation, which this…is not.

“I’m not done,” Daryun says, and Narsus raises an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“No.  I reacted defensively to your mocking my solemnity, and that is the reason I extend my apology, but I refuse to give ground on my original concern.  Narsus, these habits are beneath you, and—“

“And there it is,” Narsus cuts in with an unamused bark of a laugh.

“I am concerned about your wellbeing, and, beyond that, I am concerned about your single-minded search for ‘recreational activities’ meant to dull your senses—“

“Nothing I do is single-minded, dearest, you should _know_ that by now.”

“Narsus, please don’t start this toying again!  I am trying to have a serious conversation with you—“

“Enough.”  Finally, Narsus pushes himself off the cushions on the floor and stands.  The change in position leaves him towering over Daryun, who stares up at him unflinchingly.  He has that little crease between his brows.  He looks the way he always used to look when he would escort Narsus around some of Ekubhatana’s more salacious venues: worried, protective, painfully earnest.

But what’s he after now, the bull-headed oaf?  Narsus has so little patience for being coddled, protected from himself, whatever Daryun’s suggesting, here in a barely-fortified manse in the middle of a war zone.  They should have left this foolishness behind in the terraced villas where they played out their first, fragile courtship.  Daryun should’ve left this idiocy behind before he ever set foot on a battlefield; so eager to think of others when he should be thinking of himself and is liable to get himself killed one of these days—

Daryun doesn’t go to stand, not even when his eyes flick over to notice the clenching of Narsus’s fist.  Is he expecting Narsus to strike him?  To lash out in some display of physicality, to—

No.  Rather, Narsus speaks, because that is what he always does.

“Yes, Daryun, you are so _serious_ all the time.  We should certainly all be like you, thinking only of the next battle and never feeling a single ounce of regret for the death we facilitate every day or sparing a passing thought for how we will escape this war with our souls intact.  I will indeed endeavor to serve Prince Arslan in precisely the way _you_ see fit, oh most esteemed and noble warrior.”

“I hate how you mock me, tactician.  I hate when you turn your words to weapons instead of using them for the unearthly amount of good I know they can do.  I hate—“

“Yes, well, _I_ hate being infantilized by boneheaded soldier boys who think a spot of wine will rob my of all my faculties and leave me free to be taken advantage of or spill the prince’s secrets or—“

“I never said any of those things, Narsus!  You are so full of words you have nowhere else to put them but unasked for in the mouths of those who would only _help_ you!”

“You insinuated all of those things, and you mock your own intelligence more than I ever could by pretending otherwise.  You dismiss any subject beyond the physical and you _always have,_ and that includes all the arts to which I have devoted myself and therefore my entire essence.”

“Just like you’ve now insinuated that I am nothing but a killing machine, feeling nothing for the lives I end and reveling in the blood that coats my hands.  Stop pretending you are some sort of innocent victim of my cruelty when, as you _always have,_ you turned what could have been a necessary discussion into an argument!”

“Alright!”  Narsus throws his hands up into the air.  “I’m leaving, then, before this can get any worse.”

“Don’t run away from me, Narsus—“ Daryun scrambles to his feet and jogs after Narsus, who is already passing through the arched entrance and towards the staircase to the chambers they’ve been allotted.  Perhaps earlier he wielded his genius and stowed another bottle of that good wine in there.  He needs it, after this fiasco.

But Narsus is merely halfway down the hall when Daryun grabs his shoulder and spins him around.  Narsus turns with the insistent hand but responds with a glare so fierce that Daryun immediately recoils his hand as if scalded.

“ _What,”_ Narsus spits.

Daryun’s expression wavers in the scant torchlight.  That little crease remains between his eyes, and Narsus resolutely stares at his chin instead.

“We’re too old for all our arguments to end the same way,” Daryun says, and in that phrase— _we’re too old for—_ Narsus suddenly hears and feels all the heavy truth of it. 

Gods, how long has it been?  When did they grow so comfortably into manhood, leaving boyish idealism behind and thinking love to be a necessary casualty of the split?  And where exactly should Narsus draw the line between the innate pride he refused to lose despite any humiliation and the intelligence which is so eager to inform him when he has been a fool?

No answers to these questions spring forth from Daryun’s weary, ink-dark eyes.  Narsus laughs, pressing his fingers to his forehead and lowering his head.

“We’re such damned fools,” he says.

“Aye, we are.  Too much damned pride between us.”

“May we just leave it at that and retire, then?  I truly am exhausted.  Letting our emotions get the better of us has been an awful drain…”

“Narsus…have we not left too much unsaid?  We’ll only end up in the same place again, bottling up these hurt feelings until they explode.”

“Then how do you suggest we proceed?”

“I have never been equipped for emotional confrontation.  But I recognize that I must be behaving in ways that give you cause to suspect that I look down on you.  That could not be further from the truth of my feelings, so I wish to make amends wherever possible.  If only so that we may work together as effectively as possible for the good of our prince.”

And it’s just…Narsus is tired.  War exhausts, like council meetings, like long, pamphlet- and protest-fueled campaigns against slavery.  Daryun stands before him, all but waving a white flag, tripping over himself to offer Narsus a convenient escape route from the strange, messy hole they’ve been digging for themselves ever since the very first time Narsus made a flirtatious overture at a ball.  An entire lifetime ago.

He’s not taking it.  It’s not in him to give up that easily.

“Is that truly what you desire?” He asks instead, pitching his voice low.

“I desire only peace between us, whatever shape that takes.  I feel as if I have lost the right to expect anything different.”

He’s got that soldier’s posture.  Shoulders straight back, feet together, arms stiff by his sides.  Formal, protected.  Narsus extends a hand to brush his jaw.

“I suppose we have both lost that right,” he murmurs.

Incredibly, shockingly, Daryun leans into his hand.  Thick, dark hair slips like silk across Narsus’s fingers as Daryun tilts his head and levels him with a steady gaze.

“Come into my chambers,” Narsus says.  “I can admit when someone besides myself is correct.  And you are.  No more running.  We…will talk.  And then we will go from there.”

And what more can they ask?  No one knows what the future may bring.  They could all be imprisoned within the fortnight—within the hour, even.  A day from now, Daryun could be crushed by his horse in the thick of battle.  Or Narsus could drown in mud and his own lifeblood with an arrow protruding from his throat.  Or they could all be walked to the gallows with Arslan’s head upon a spike.

They will go from here.  They will pick a starting point, this time, before beginning the race.  They will both employ their not-inconsiderable talents, drive, and passion, and the rest will have to come where it will.

**Author's Note:**

> oh god a friend got me into arslan (the og 90s version, ftr) and now h e r e i a m
> 
> please come talk to me about arslan over at haloud.tumblr.com <3


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